Institute for Statecraft/Cover up
Institute for Statecraft/Cover up (Cover up) | |
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Labour MP Chris Williamson on 19 December 2018, after Dan Lafayeedney slammed the door to the Institute for Statecraft in his face. https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2018/12/20/institute-for-statecraft-slams-door-in-labour-mps-face/ | |
The cover-up of the Institute for Statecraft has proved problematic since its exposure, through the Integrity Initiative leak was so sudden. As a multi-million pound organisation with a multiplicity of staff members and ongoing prior commitments it was not easy to flush down the memory hole.
Contents
Initial efforts
After the initial Integrity Initiative leak, Chris Williamson visited the Institute for Statecraft HQ at Temple on the morning of 19 December 2018 with a delegation from The Canary. On learning their intentions, Daniel Lafayeedney reportedly "slammed the door in his face, without saying anything".[1]
Website
Removal of names
Comparison of two snapshots of the Institute for Statecraft website, 22 November 2018 and 10 January 2019 shows that six names were removed from the list of fellows: Jack Agazarian (Senior Fellow), William Bortrick (Senior Associate Fellow), Robert Dover (Senior Associate Fellow), Martin Edmonds (Senior Associate Fellow), Ben Nimmo (Senior Fellow), Malik Niazi (Senior Fellow).
Complete takedown
On 22 January 2019, the Integrity Initiative "temporarily" deleted the entire contents of their website.[2] The Institute for Statecraft followed suit shortly afterwards.
Corporate media blackout
Western commercially-controlled media had,for the most part, little to say about the Institute for Statecraft. This may reflect a D-Notice and/or general disinclination to go near a perceived third rail topic. A partial explanation is also provided by the existence of the IfS/II's "clusters", which extended internationally, and included journalists.
Wikipedia
By January 2020, Wikipedia had just 3 sentences about the Integrity Initiative Leak.